salvador - henk van straten (2011)

after reading van straten's satire novel superlul, i decided to read this one, which was released at the same time. the two books probably could't be more different, but they're both great!

hendrie perenboom travels to spain to meet his son, a seven-year-old boy, of whose existence he didn't know until some weeks ago. before he confronts the mother and the boy, he spies on them, wanting to know if he really is the father and why this is suddenly becoming an issue for the mother, who asked him to come.

a wonderful portrait. the best part is the inner struggle of hendrie, who refers to himself as ishmael of both the bible and herman melville's moby dick, and his hard fought but useless trying to develop from a hopeless juvenile delinquent to the man he desperatly wants to be, told in little episodes between the main story.

the book is nominated for the dutch literary price libris.

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ballet: the fairy queen - henry purcell (1692) by richard wherlock

this was my first ballet ever. the music by henry purcell is barroque, and the dancing was very modern, emotional and also funny. the story is based on shakespeare's a midsummer night's dream (1595), which i absolutely love. a year or so ago i saw the play performed by od-theater, which was really cool. so i was very curious how the matter is transformed into a ballet.

the king of the fairies, oberon, and his queen titania are quarreling about a little indian boy. oberon is jealous and instructs the ne'er-do-well puck to give his wife a love-juice and make her fall in love with a donkey-headed human. this and all kind of other love-stories sum up in a wonderful mess.

the story has also been made into the modern teenage-musical were the world mine (2008), where topics as homosexuality an sexuality itself are nicely taken up. 

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